A router is an apparatus for interconnection between network systems (including interconnection between Local Area Networks or Wide Area Networks) and is capable of selecting the optimal path from among all possible network paths in order to transmit data packets. Therefore, routers play a critical role in the Internet. With the development of wireless network technology, router designs have advanced from wired to wireless ones. A wireless router can transmit data to and from several terminal devices simultaneously using wireless signals.
Nowadays, due to changes in the way of life, more and more people must travel between different places, where they have to use terminal devices of various forms (e.g., desktop computers, laptop computers, or mobile phones) to log on to the Internet. One who has the above needs may buy a mobile router for receiving different kinds of wired or wireless network signals and simultaneously sharing the network signals with the terminal devices in use. Currently, some common network connection modes in Internet applications are those based respectively on a wired Ethernet (e.g., Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, or Gigabit Ethernet), a Local Area Network (LAN) (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DECT, or Wireless USB), and a Wide Area Network (WAN) (e.g., GPRS, EDGE, 3GPP, 4G-LTE, or WiMAX). The wired Ethernet connection mode further includes such protocols as the Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) and the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).
In order for a mobile router to connect to the Internet through a network transmission device capable of wired or wireless networking (e.g., a modem provided by a network service provider, a LAN server, or a wireless signal access point) and thereby enable different terminal devices to log on to the Internet via the mobile router, a connection must first be established between the mobile router and the network transmission device, and the network connection settings of the connection must be set according to the network connection mode and the type of protocol between the mobile router and the network transmission device; otherwise, the mobile router cannot connect to the Internet. Therefore, if the mobile router is frequently taken to different places where the networking environments provided (including the network connection modes and the protocols to be used) vary, it is necessary to change the network connection settings manually each time the mobile router is moved to a different networking environment.
As the parameters required to be set vary with the network connection mode in use, only those who are knowledgeable about network technology are capable of making the right settings on their own; one who is unfamiliar with such technology may find it rather difficult and complicated to simply understand the settings of each network connection mode. Consequently, it is not uncommon that, due to a lack of knowledge in networking, the user of a mobile router sets the wrong settings that prevent the mobile router from working properly. Or the user has to spend a lot of time figuring out how to set the correct settings, which causes trouble to the user, too. Moreover, as stated above, the settings are not good for all networking environments. Whenever the user takes the mobile router to a different networking environment, the settings must be reset manually even if the user travels between only two places, which is truly annoying.
According to the above, a mobile router cannot be used in different networking environments unless the user changes the network connection settings of the mobile router in response to any change in the networking environment, and the user is required to set the network connection settings of the mobile router manually each time the networking environment is changed. In a nutshell, the setting of a mobile router is extremely user-unfriendly. Hence, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to design a mobile router which can automatically detect an applicable network connection mode and automatically self-configure for network connection, so as to provide increased convenience of use.